It’s film festival season again. Scrub that. These days there’s always a cinematic celebration or two running somewhere around the country, with events big, medium and small scattered throughout the calendar. If you wanted to launch a new one – and people keep having a go – then it would be hard to find a vacant slot.

We’ve already had this year’s ever-growing Alliance Française French Film Festival, rapidly followed by a Spanish event run by the cinema and distribution chain Palace, an Irish event in Melbourne and Sydney only, and in its second year, Cinema Reborn, devoted to classics in pristine prints, many of them recently restored.

The 3 Penny Opera

Meanwhile another major Palace event, the German Film Festival, runs from May 21 until June 12. This year’s program includes two films themed around Brecht’s celebrated
The Threepenny Opera(the new
Mack the Knife...

A number of organisations provide support for musicians, artists and arts workers. During these challenging times for the arts industry, many have set up services to deal specifically with the COVID-19 crisis and its effect on the arts community.